Worldwide Cookbooks

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SIMPLE ITALIAN COOKERY

American Woman's Home

Art of Living in Australia

Cooking Eggs

Elegant Art of Dining

Guide to Marketing and Cooking

Italian Recipes

Meal Preparation

School and Home Cooking

Physiology of Taste

Tried and True Recipes

Milk Butter Cheese Eggs Vegetables

Hans Christian Andersen . American Fairy Tales . Grimm's Fairy Tales

Aesop's Fables - Tales with Morals . Mother Goose . Mother Goose in Prose

Minestre

Minestra is a thick broth, very much like hotch-potch, only
thicker.  In Italy it is often served at the beginning of dinner
instead of soup; it also makes an excellent lunch dish.  Two or
three tablespoonsful of No. 35 will be found a great improvement to
any of these minestre.

No. 35.  A Condiment for Seasoning Minestre, &c.

Ingredients:  Onions, celery, carrots, butter, salt, stock,
tomatoes, mushrooms.

Cut up an onion, a stick of celery, and a carrot; fry them in
butter and salt; add a few bits of cooked ham and veal cut up, two
mushrooms, and the pulp of a tomato.  Cook for a quarter of an
hour, and add a little stock occasionally to keep it moist.  Pass
through a sieve, and use for seasoning minestre, macaroni, rice,
&c.  It should be added when the dish is nearly cooked.

No. 36.  Minestra alla Casalinga

Ingredients:  Rice, butter, stock, vegetables.

All sorts of vegetables will serve for this dish.  Blanch them in
boiling salted water, then drain and fry them in butter.  Add
plenty of good stock, and put them on a slow fire.  Boil four
ounces of rice in stock, and when it is well done add the stock
with the vegetables.  Season with two or three spoonsful of No. 35,
and serve with grated cheese handed separately.

No. 37.  Minestra of Rice and Turnips

Ingredients:  Rice, turnips, butter, gravy, tomatoes.

Cut three or four young turnips into slices and put them on a dish,
strew a little salt over them, cover them with another dish, and
let them stand for about two hours until the water has run out of
them.  Then drain the slices, put them in a frying-pan and fry them
slightly in butter.  Add some good gravy and mashed-up tomatoes,
and after having cooked this for a few minutes pour it into good
boiling stock.  Add three ounces of well-washed rice, and boil for
half-an-hour.

Minestra loses its flavour if it is boiled too long.  In Lombardy,
however, rice, macaroni, &c., are rarely boiled enough for English
tastes.

No. 38.  Minestra alla Capucina

Ingredients:  Rice, anchovies, butter, stock, and onions.

Scale an anchovy, pound it, and fry it in butter together with a
small onion cut across, and four ounces of boiled rice.  Add a
little salt, and when the rice is a golden brown, take out the
onion and gradually add some good stock until the dish is of the
consistency of rice pudding.

No. 39.  Minestra of Semolina

Ingredients:  Stock, semolina, Parmesan.

Put as much stock as you require into a saucepan, and when it
begins to boil add semolina very gradually, and stir to keep it
from getting lumpy Cook it until the semolina is soft, and serve
with grated Parmesan handed separately.  To one quart of soup use
three ounces of semolina.

No. 40.  Minestrone alla Milanese

Ingredients:  Rice or macaroni, ham, bacon, stock, all sorts of
vegetables.

Minestrone is a favourite dish in Lombardy when vegetables are
plentiful.  Boil all sorts of vegetables in stock, and add bits of
bacon, ham, onions braized in butter, chopped parsley, a clove of
garlic with two cuts, and rice or macaroni.  Put in those
vegetables first which require most cooking, and do not make the
broth too thin.  Leave the garlic in for a quarter of an hour only.

No. 41.  Minestra of Rice and Cabbage

Ingredients:  Rice, cabbage, stock, ham, tomato sauce.

Cut off the stalk and all the hard outside leaves of a cabbage,
wash it and cut it up, but not too small, then drain and cook it in
good stock and add two ounces of boiled rice.  This minestre is
improved by adding a little chopped ham and a few spoonsful of
tomato sauce.

No. 42.  Minestra of Rice and Celery

Ingredients:  Celery, rice, stock.

Cut up a head of celery and remove all the green parts, then boil
it in good stock and add two ounces of rice, and boil till it is
well cooked.